In February, the St. Paul City Council asked city staff to study the possibility of allowing mother-in-law apartments, or accessory dwellings, in five corners of the city — Mounds Park, the Eastview-Conway-Battle Creek-Highwood area, Frogtown, West Seventh Street and the West Side.

The plan that emerged last month from the St. Paul Planning Commission, however, is far different. On June 1, the commission voted unanimously to recommend accessory dwelling units, or “ADUs,” be allowed citywide.

In other words, grandma could soon move into her own small apartment next door, no matter where her family moves in St. Paul.

The new rules are not yet finalized. The city council will host a public hearing on whether to allow the mother-in-law apartments to roll out citywide at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 15.

Andy Rorvig doesn’t plan to wait that long to make his feelings heard. The president of the Summit Hill Association is organizing a public hearing of the association’s zoning and land-use committee at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Linwood Recreation Center.

The topic? ADUs, and nothing but ADUs.

“I don’t quite know how it went from studying five areas in March to a whole citywide roll-out,” Rorvig said. “We didn’t participate because we weren’t one of the five districts. We’re concerned about the process.”

Rorvig worries about owners of single-family homes effectively converting their structures into duplexes for the added rent. There’s also the potential to use the accessory dwelling for short-term rentals such Airbnbs, which have proliferated throughout the neighborhood, often unlicensed.

And then there’s the parking concerns.

Between Summit Hill and Ramsey Hill, “we have some of the greatest density outside of downtown,” Rorvig said. “There hasn’t been a parking study done since 2005. It’s hard to know what additional impact this could have.”

City planning staff said at least eight district councils beyond the initial five impacted areas reached out to the city and asked to be included in the zoning study. There was also strong support for a citywide proposal from the mayor’s advisory committee on aging.

To date, city staffers have met with at least 12 of St. Paul’s 17 district councils and held two community listening sessions in April. They also posted a question about the mother-in-law units on the Open St. Paul web portal. Additional meetings with the district councils are being scheduled.

St. Paul City Council President Amy Brendmoen — one of the first council members to call for a citywide study of accessory dwellings — said the council is looking at “many high priority recommendations” to address the city’s housing crisis, and that several council members “believe that they have potential to expeditiously add affordable, safe housing for elders, families (and) caregivers.”

“This upcoming ordinance is about creating a thoughtful process for ADUs in St. Paul,” Brendmoen said. “We want to be sure this opportunity is available equitably across the city.”

IT STARTED ALONG THE GREEN LINE

Minneapolis has approved several dozen mother-in-law apartments, or granny flats, since they were permitted by the city in 2014, but St. Paul property owners have built just one.

The accessory dwellings can be attached — such as attics — or unattached, such as carriage houses and converted garages.

Proponents of accessory dwellings have called ADUs one way to help seniors and young people remain close to their families and stay in their community, rather than get priced out.

They’ve noted the increase in elderly nationwide, and the increase in St. Paul housing costs for renters and homebuyers alike, as well as potential benefits such as increased home value.

The political momentum for ADUs started along the Green Line.

In September 2016, the city council approved allowing accessory dwellings within a half mile of University Avenue between Emerald Street and Lexington Parkway, with detailed conditions. Among them, the dwellings may be rented exclusively to family, loosely defined under the zoning code as a lineally-related family plus two other residents, or “up to four unrelated persons” across the two structures. The property owner must live in the principal or accessory dwelling.

At the time, some critics worried they would become student dwellings.

Their lack of popularity could be a result of construction costs, or the many rules attached to them, such as city mandates that require independent sewer and water connections to the street.

Among the regulations, external stairs to upper floors are not allowed on the front of a home, an ADU in a detached structure cannot be larger than 800 square feet, and the height of a new accessory dwelling cannot exceed that of the principal structure.

The one property owner who built an accessory dwelling in St. Paul told city staff that the height requirement had been difficult to work with, but city staff is not recommending a change to that rule.

City staff did, however, recommend lifting a 5,000 square foot lot size requirement for accessory dwellings that are internal to a principal structure.

Frederick Melo was once sued by a reader for $2 million but kept on writing. He came to the Pioneer Press in 2005 and brings a testy East Coast attitude to St. Paul beat reporting. He spent nearly six years covering crime in the Dakota County courts before switching focus to the St. Paul mayor's office, city council, and all things neighborhood-related, from the city's churches to its parks and light rail. A resident of Hamline-Midway, he is married to a Frogtown woman. He Tweets with manic intensity at @FrederickMelo.

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